


the most dangerous thing is to love

by shella688



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, DTTM references, Eventual Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Ghosts, M/M, Out references, Set before during and after the Moon War, The deaths are permenant but they're ok, Updates Fridays, temporary loss of comfort object
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29718501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shella688/pseuds/shella688
Summary: Once upon a time, there were two young boys who became friends, and grew into two young men who loved each other. What happens when these two young men go to war? What happens when only one comes back?(title from Achilles Come Down, and all chapter titles are from The Song Of Achilles, because I love having a Theme going on)
Relationships: Bertie/Gunpowder Tim (The Mechanisms), Gunpowder Tim & the other Mechanisms, Jonny d'Ville & Gunpowder Tim, well. maybe '''friendship''' is pushing it
Comments: 38
Kudos: 26





	1. I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth

There was fighting on the Lunar surface. There had been fighting - not a war yet, the polished cabinet members giving rehearsed speeches on the newsfeeds were careful never to call it a war - going on on the Lunar surface for decades now, generations of men and women drafted in to fire their lasers at the enemy scum. (“Scum”, here, being a word used by those in power on both sides to make sure that their soldiers didn’t get any funny ideas about similarities with the opposition.)

Officially, the fighting was because the Moon Kaiser had commissioned a vast Lunar canon, aimed directly at London. Unofficially? Well- it had only been a matter of time, workers muttered, when the inspectors couldn’t hear them. If it hadn't been because the Lennies were going to blow them up, it’d have been because _they_ were going to blow up the Moon.

Tim, aged six and four fifths, and cycling full pelt down a cracked road that the government didn’t have the money to repair, on account of all their funds being spent on new lasers for the fighting, found the whole situation very unfair in a way that only nearly-7 years olds can find it. His da was fighting on the surface, had been for nearly a full year now; his nan and grampa were working double shifts at various field hospitals and never had time to call and his mum came home every night exhausted from her work at the factory. 

Unfair.

Occupied with these thoughts, Tim didn't notice the other boy until they ran into each other. Or, more accurately, until Tim had nearly run him _over_.

"Fuck!" the boy, who seemed no older than Tim, swore loudly.

Tim gave him a look.

"My mum says it's impolite to say that."

The boy shrugged.

"Well _my_ mum says she can't stop me since ma says it all the time anyway."

That was as good an explanation as any. Tim stuck his hand out, because he knew that was what adults did when they made friends.

"I'm Tim." He paused, and the hand retracted slightly. "Do you have a bike?"

"It's my cousin’s," the boy replied, in the tone of voice used to talk about family heirlooms. "He gave it to me before he went off to war."

The boy took Tim’s hand. 

“I’m Bertie. It is a pleasure to meet you.” 

The two shook hands solemnly. Their serious expressions lasted all of ten seconds, before they devolved into fits of giggles.

“You sounded so posh!”

“It’s what grown ups say to each other! Swear!”

“Yeah, grown ups who live in the big houses! Not _us_!”

Tim pushed Bertie, who shoved back playfully and like that, in the way that only nearly-seven year olds manage, they became firm friends.

* * *

Tim was always the fun one, in his words, or the foolhardy one, according to his mum. It mostly amounted to the same thing - Tim was always the fastest racing down the street on his bike, or trying to set splints on fire in chemistry class, or getting the closest to the big houses on the other side of town before the security guards chased him away.

But Tim was never alone. Bertie was always there, maybe cycling slightly slower, maybe slightly further from the flame or the big gates, but he was _there,_ cheering his encouragement, helping plan their escapades and offering comfort when invariably something went wrong.

“Chin up soldier,” he’d always say, another phrase copied from his ma. “They haven’t killed you yet.”

Bertie was there when Tim broke his arm aged seven after a particularly nasty fall, when the two earned themselves a week of detention aged ten after breaking that window, when aged thirteen the two of them hopped on the first train they found and promptly got lost - “chin up soldier, they haven’t killed you yet.”

When Tim and his mum received the news that awful day, when Tim ran out into the fields and screamed his lungs out because he was choking with all the rage and the grief and the knowledge that his da wouldn’t even get a decent funeral, when the boy, only fifteen, didn’t return home for hours on end, Bertie went out to get him.

He found him at last as the sun was setting, crouched over on the ground, throat too hoarse to sob. Bertie took his coat and wrapped it around him gently. It was a long time before Tim moved, but he did, slowly, nestling himself into Bertie’s side.

“Chin up soldier,” Bertie said, ignoring the chill on his now bare arms. It didn't matter because Tim was here, Time was safe _Tim was safe._ “They haven’t killed you yet.”

  
  


* * *

With Tim’s da gone, he and his mum couldn't afford to keep the house. It was only natural that Bertie’s mums offered to let them move in - there wasn’t much space, but the boys were such good friends already, weren’t they?, and if the two families pooled their money then they’d get by alright.

They fell into a routine easily enough. Each morning Tim’s mum would leave for the factory, and Bertie’s ma would come home from her night shift. Bertie’s mum would spend all day in a box her employer claimed was an office, writing down neat little numbers that represented amounts of money she could only dream of.

Each night, Tim and Bertie curled into each other on the bed they shared. Bertie would always be the one up last, trying to read in the light of the corridor leaking beneath the door, letting the sound of Tim’s steady breathing gradually lull him to sleep. By comparison, Tim would always wake up first, relishing the peace of a sleeping house, until at last he got bored and would nudge Bertie until he woke up too.

Everything wasn’t perfect, of course it wasn’t. They argued sometimes, about big things and little things and big things that should have been little things. But then Tim would make a joke just to see Bertie’s smile, or Bertie would find some reason to linger in the same room as Tim, not saying anything but being _there,_ and now, just maybe, the argument didn’t seem as important anymore.

They were friends yes, of course, but over time something else grew alongside their friendship. It took root in Tim’s lungs when the sight of Bertie lit by the sun made his breath stop and his heart beat loudly in his ears. It grew up and around Tim’s heart when they lay together at night and he felt so fiercely protective over the sleeping boy that it hurt. And it flowered too, to stretch the metaphor as far as it will go.

It flowered for the first time when Tim and Bertie were sixteen years old, when they were alone in the house after working odd jobs for weeks to save up enough to allow their mums to have a meal out. The sun was just setting, a song neither of them knew was playing on the radio, and Tim was utterly failing at teaching Bertie to dance.

He’d been close, physically, to Bertie many times before, of course, but this was something else. He was keenly aware of his hands on Bertie’s shoulders and Bertie’s at his waist, at the way they moved together in each other’s spaces and collided as they moved out of time. 

And it flowered for the first time when Bertie smiled the smile that made Tim’s heart skip a beat and reached out to tuck Tim’s hair behind his ear and said, gentle as anything, _can I kiss you?_

And all Tim could think as he nodded, as Bertie leaned close and his lips brushed his cheek was,

_This is where I want to be. This is where I want to stay._

* * *

“You could tell me what’s going on, you know,” Tim laughed. He was getting gently rained on as he sat on a bench in the city centre, a thick scarf tied over his eyes. Well- _presumably_ he was still in town, but Bertie had been cagey about the whole thing ever since this morning, so who knew?

“It’s a _surprise._ ” Bertie poked Tim in the side and he jumped, trying to bat away an assailant he couldn’t see.

“Okay - close your eyes and hold your hands out.”

“I already can’t see!” Tim protested, but held them out anyway. Something lightweight and metallic was dropped into them.

“Taking the scarf off…” Bertie paused for dramatic effect, “now!”

Tim blinked in the sudden light. The first thing he noticed was that, yes, they were still in town. The second was what Bertie had placed in his hands - a necklace with a garish blue pendant in the shape of half a love heart on it. The third was the other half of the pendant, hanging bright and cheerily around Bertie’s neck.

It was all very unsubtle, to say the least, but then when had Tim ever been subtle? 

“It’s _perfect_ ,” he breathed, trying and failing to fasten his part round his neck with cold fingers. “Ah fuc-”

“Give it here.” Bertie moved Tim’s hair out the way, his hands lightly brushing the back of the other’s neck. Tim’s breath caught in his throat at the gentle touch.

“I swear,” he said, with all the sincerity of a seventeen year old who thinks himself immortal, “I am _never_ taking this off.”

  
  


* * *

And, to be fair to Tim, he didn’t.

Not as the nights grew darker, and everyone braced for a cold autumn and worse winter. Not as the polished cabinet members giving rehearsed speeches on the newsfeeds grew more and more serious but still insisted that the war (because that’s what they were calling it now, a _war_ ) would be over by Christmas. Not as all the shops closed up for good, their owners off to fight for Queen and country.

And Tim held onto it tight with one hand whilst holding on to Bertie with the other the day that the newsfeeds announced that _everyone_ with no other form of employment would be called upon to join the army, the month they became of age. (And there was the unspoken threat, too. Join as a brave volunteer, or be forced in and be called a coward).

That night, neither of them slept. They lay there, silent, neither of them wanting to speak what they were thinking into existence.

Because…

Because Tim was six months older than Bertie. When they had been younger, it had been a source of teasing, but now? Now it meant half a year apart - Bertie here and Tim being sent off to fight all the way on the Moon. They were going to sign up together, that had been the plan, because the little man with the big moustache who took enlistments promised that people who joined together would be assigned to the same battalion. 

It had been their plan for years.

At last, Tim sighed.

“I’m of age next week,” he said simply.

“You’re not going on your own.” Bertie pressed his face into Tim’s back. “I won’t let you.”

“Bertie-”

“I’ll lie about my age," he interrupted. “They won’t check, will they? Besides, I look older than you.”

“ _Bertie_ -” Tim said again, but this time his voice was thicker. He knew there was no stopping him, not like this.

Bertie pressed a soft kiss into the top of Tim’s head.

“Chin up soldier,” he said, and Tim managed a laugh.

“I know. They haven’t killed me yet.”

* * *

So the two young men - though only one was legally an adult - did what all young men did, and went off to war.


	2. no bargains between lions and men

How can something be so similar to what you were expecting, and yet entirely different?

The Lunar surface had been deserted for decades, burnt-out skeletons of buildings littering the craters and plains. All the fighting took place in the vast caverns and tunnel systems that riddled its insides. It was muddy, it was dusty, it was cold. And most of the time it was pitch dark, aside from muzzled flashes or your comrades catching fire as the invisible beam of heat swept through No Man's Land.

It was no place for anyone, let alone two barely-adults.

42nd Starboard Division - that’s what they were told they were part of now by the woman with the Major’s stripes on her shoulder, who seemed offended by the mere presence of mud in her vicinity. She dropped two uniforms in Tim and Bertie’s arms, and told them in no uncertain terms that she had far more important things to be dealing with, so so long as you two could keep your heads down and follow orders, well, everyone would get along fine, wouldn’t they?

She didn’t bother saying goodbye as she left.

Tim glanced over at Bertie, who looked just as baffled as he felt. He’d been- well, he wasn’t sure what he’d thought was going to happen, but not  _ that.  _ Tim would have liked someone to point out where they slept, for example, or maybe have been given a uniform that didn’t have a worrying stain over the chest. It was mud, he told himself. Mud was brown, the stain was brown. It was mud. Had to be.

“Three out of ten on the customer service,” Bertie whispered to him.

“Oh come on.” He did his best to keep a straight face. “At  _ least  _ a five. Did you see her buttons? Polished to a shine they were.”   


“Probably a metaphor for something.” Bertie was mock-thoughtful. “The clean uniform against-” he poked a pile of mud with a foot, “-all this shit.”

“Home sweet h-”

Tim was interrupted by a sudden hand clapping his shoulder. Shoving it off, he spun round, the words “what the hell are you playing at” dying on his lips.

The man wasn’t especially tall, or muscular looking, or imposing, and was probably only a year or two older than he was. He carried a laser rifle like he knew how to use it, but given the situation, that wasn’t exactly noteworthy. If they’d passed on the street back home, Tim wouldn’t have given him a second thought. Dirty blond hair (in both senses of the word), some sort of makeup that was unusual but not especially outlandish, a muddy uniform that marked him as a private first class - all in all, he was just some guy, really.

But then there were his eyes.

Tim’s brain grappled for the right word. They were too steady to be properly feral, far too bright to be calculating, and were slightly wild in a way that implied the man was, perhaps, a few guns short of an armoury. Worse than that though, was the way Time felt the man looking  _ at  _ him and  _ through  _ him, like he was searching for something interesting on the inside.

He looked away. The man laughed.

“Jonny d’Ville, at your service!” He gave a dramatic bow. “Welcome to the pile of utter shite known formally as the 42nd Starbourne. You two lads are wanting a guide, I assume?”

Bertie trod hard on Tim’s foot before he could try saying something unhelpful like “Yes, we do, but from someone else if it’s all the same to you.”

“We would, thank you sir,” Bertie said for them both.

“Sir?” He grinned at them, and suddenly Tim was incredibly glad that Jonny was on  _ their  _ side. “I like you already. This way to the shitshow!”

And with that, Jonny wandered off, seemingly taking it for granted that Tim and Bertie would follow. They did, of course. Sometimes you’ve got to put your personal feelings on the matter aside and follow the first person who’s offered help, even if they  _ are  _ a bit of a fucking weirdo (to put it lightly).

Jonny seemed incapable of just  _ walking  _ to a location. Every hole, every pile of mud, seemed to have a story behind it, and he made sure that the other two knew. He talked loudly, enthusiastically, and with no shortage of dramatic gestures - more suited to the stage than the trenches.

That bench over there, he pointed out with far more excitement than probably warranted, was where the General had sat to eat lunch, back when they still pretended to enjoy slumming it with the common soldiers. That fungus growing on the wall, Jonny said, delighted, feeds off the gas from the gas attacks and  _ this _ bullet hole here had been left behind by one that had actually killed him, the bastard - a story Tim was sure he must have misheard. 

“And  _ this _ ,” Jonny proclaimed, slamming open some wood planks that could charitably be called a ‘door’, “is home sweet home.”

He mentioned around at the room- well- it was a hole, really, dug into the Lunar rock. There was just about enough space for the two camp beds and a cylindrical metal device, partially rusted, that Tim couldn’t say the purpose of, but was sure Jonny would tell him soon enough.

“That bed’s mine, that one’s the Soldier’s, but it doesn’t sleep, so if you two don’t mind sharing-” He gave them a meaningful look, “then it can be yours.”

There were a lot of words put together that didn’t usually go together there, and it took Tim a moment to process it all.

“Won’t..” Bertie began hesitantly, “won’t Soldier mind?”

“The Toy Soldier, is its full name,” Jonny corrected. “ _ Captain  _ the Toy Soldier.” The amount of venom behind the one word Captain took Tim aback.

“And it won’t, it doesn’t need sleep - just lies on the bed staring right at me, the creepy bastard. Perks of being made out of wood, I gue-”

“It’s made out of  **_wood_ ** ?”

“Yes, keep up. And it’ll obey anything said to it if it’s phrased as an order, so just watch your words, no?”

Jonny’s voice darkened dangerously at that last bit, but all at once he was back to his previous exuberant self.

“Anyway, since it’s managed to promote itself to captain, that means it gets a room. And since it and I go way back, it let me share. And since I’ve taken a shine to you two, I’m extending the offer! What says you?”

It wasn’t much of a decision, all things considered. Yes, they’d be sleeping in the same place as a wooden person and.. whatever Jonny’s deal was, but it was becoming rapidly apparent that the other option was to stay outside.

“Sure.” Tim aimed for nonchalance. “I suppose we’ll take it.”

Jonny grinned again and it was just as bad the second time round. He leaned out of the door, yelling:   
“Soldier! Come meet your new roommates!”

Bertie frowned.

“Can it hear you?”

“I Can!” chirped a new someone, who was standing in the doorway but had _not_ been there a moment ago, Tim was sure of it.

“Hello! I’m The Toy Soldier!”

It had an off putting way of talking. It didn’t speak in sentences- well, yes it  _ did _ , Tim corrected himself, but it seemed to treat every word as its own entity, disconnected to the ideas around it. The general tiredness that today had caused wasn’t helping Tim interpret its talking either. God- he hoped it wasn’t the type to give long, “inspiring” speeches.

“Nice to meet you, captain,” Tim said, holding his hand out.”

“ _ Nice to meet you captain, _ ” he heard from Jonny, high pitched and mocking. What the hell was that guy’s deal?

“Oh! You’re Very Polite! Jonny I Like Him!” The Toy Soldier shook his hand enthusiastically. “This Bed Is Mine - Well, Yours Now! That One Is Jonny’s And You Can Tell Because He’s Allergic To Making It.”

“I wish I could still airlock you,” he muttered.

“You Love Me! Anyway Old Chaps - Put Your Things Wherever, There’s No Avoiding The Mud! Welcome Home!”

A shit sort of home it made, but Tim appreciated the sentiment. 

The prospect of being able to crash on a bed was seeming better and better by the second. He dropped his bag by the metal cylinder- oh yes.

“What’s this do?” He poked it gently with one foot.

“That’s The Respirator! When We Get Hit By A Gas Attack, It Should Make Sure We Can Breathe! They’re Dotted All About The Trenches!”

Putting “when” and “should” in that sentence didn’t comfort either Tim or Bertie.

“..does it actually work?” Bertie asked, unconvinced.

Jonny made a non-committal sound.

“How lucky are you feeling?”

*

The war passed, that was the only way to describe it. There were no days or nights, not underground. Time was measured out in the gaps between alarms ringing, in between the ration deliveries that seemed to shrink every time, in mind-numbing stretches of nothingness either side of sudden periods of  _ everything. _

Tim got used to it, in a way. It’s amazing what people will get used to, in a way, if you give them enough time, and no way out of it.

He got used to how the gas attack alarms could usually be ignored, other than in the far trench, where the weird red mould had broken the pump system beyond repair. It became second nature to squash himself somewhere in between Jonny, Bertie and the Toy Soldier when the microwave attacks hit, when the only thing standing between the four of them and getting cooked alive was a dented sheet of lead.

He even got used to his new… neighbours wasn’t the right word, but he didn’t really have anything better. The Toy Soldier was fine, even if its constant cheerfulness could get grating at times. There were Daisy and Other Tim, two lads who were from down south but who tried not to let that get in the way too much. There was old Mx O'Grady (first name unknown), who was the only one in the company with the skill to make the rations taste halfway decent. Even Jonny wasn't too bad, Tim admitted to himself, once you got over the whole Jonny d'Ville-ness of him.

The one thing he never got used to was being sent over the top, laser in hand and heart pounding in ears, not knowing who around him would be coming back, not knowing if  _ he  _ would be coming back. The way sometimes his vision tunneled and went red and the rifle felt like an extension of himself and everything and nothing mattered. 

Tim never wanted to get used to that. What sort of person would he be then?

*

Officially, Tim was on watch. That’s what the higher ups would be told, if they ever bothered to read the reports landing on their desks - he was keeping an eye out for any Lenny soldiers trying to sneak across No-Man’s-Land and attack from the north west.

There’d been a cave-in a few months back, and it was utterly impassable now, but they didn’t need to know that.

The former lookout station was understood to be where you went if you needed time to yourself. Apparently Jonny, climbing the ladder up with two mugs of a steaming something or other, hadn’t got the message. 

“Got you this,” he said by way of hello.

If Tim made a list of people he really,  _ really _ didn’t want to see right now, Jonny d’Ville wouldn’t even be a consideration until at least the second sheet of paper. Maybe it was pettiness on his part- no, scratch that, it was  _ definitely  _ pettiness on his part. Still, there were worse hills to die on.

“Come on mate,” Jonny said, as Tim steadfastly ignored him. “Fresh hot mug of Something, made just for you.”

The way he so clearly capitalised the word Something was almost enough to get Tim to speak.

Almost.

He did take the mug though, relishing the warmth spreading through his hands. The liquid inside glooped in a slightly concerning way as he swirled it round. He frowned at it.

Jonny saw him looking.

“It’s Something!” he said with far too much glee. “Whatever tea I could scrounge up, mixed with whatever was still in the pan when I boiled it. Bottoms up!”

Raising the mug in salute, he took a long swig and only gagged a tiny bit at the taste of it.

Tim gave in.

“What are you doing here, d’Ville.”

“d’Ville is it now?” 

“Answer the damn question.”

Jonny laughed to himself and took another sip. 

“Have you told him yet?”

“Told who what?”

The other man gave him a meaningful look from over the rim of his mug. Tim was about to repeat his question- then he stopped.

No. Surely Jonny “wouldn’t know tact if it shot at him with a laser” d’Ville wasn’t trying to talk about  _ Bertie _ ? 

He glanced over at Jonny again, who had a decidedly self-satisfied look on his face. Tim realised he had unconsciously gone to his half of the heart, still around his neck, even after all this time.

Oh fuck off.

“One-” he began, and he didn’t know where the sudden surge of hot anger had come from but he wasn’t going to stop it. “It isn’t any of your business, and two-” Was he shouting? “Even if it  _ was  _ your business, I sure as hell aren’t about to discuss it with  _ you. _ ”

He stopped, breathing heavily. The silence was brittle.

Jonny hardly seemed to have noticed.

“You should tell him you love him, if you haven’t.” He motioned vaguely at Tim’s face, ignoring the daggers being glared into him. “It’s obvious, the way you look at each other, I mean- space Jesus.” 

A pause.

“‘Course,” Jonny continued idly, “you don’t  _ have  _ to tell him shit. I don’t know- maybe you enjoy living a tragedy. Don’t let me control you.”

“Why do you even care?” Tim spat, slamming the mug down, climbing down from the lookout. So much for some peace and quiet.

In the now empty lookout post, Jonny drained his Something.

“When you’re as old as I am,” he said to the air at large, “you can feel the plotline in your bones.”

As if to prove the point, his knees cracked as he stood up. He whistled an upbeat tune to himself.

Finally, something  _ interesting _ was going to happen.


	3. eat the world raw

The whistle blew, and the world went to shit.

The thud of his feet on the ground is in time with the thump of his heart in his ears and Tim _ runs _ \- onwards and on to the end of the world where it all narrows down to the flash of a gun and the shot of a laser that flies through the air. Tim laughs, he thinks, or somebody does, a gleeful sound cutting right down to the bone and the air splits apart at his bright savage joy. At his side Jonny dances through shots in the air like he’s done this hundred, no, million times before now.

Why do they run- does he know? Does he care? Following orders sent down from the high-ups so far removed from day-to-day life that the words might have come from the Moon Kaiser’s throne, so little a difference it makes. Someone decided that this set of soldiers should run to their deaths across these barren wastes because that set of trenches, all full of the enemy, would look so much better belonging to them.

Tim doesn’t care, not with shots all around and the song in his blood reminding him - yes - he’s alive and he lives and the freedom he feels in the midst of the fight is like nothing he has the words to describe.

He loves it.

Bertie’s there too, up running ahead though he’s slower than Jonny and slower than Tim as he dodges - not dances - through shots in the air. He never quite grasped how to move with the fight and to lose yourself in all the shouts and the cries.

Tim watches him run and watches him slow and watches him not watch the shots that fly by and everything travels so quick and there’s no time for him to move out of the way and that shot in the air hits him in his chest and everything 

stops.

  
  


Bertie staggers

and then he

looks back

(just once)   


right back at Tim

He looks shocked-

scared

  
  


like there’s something that hasn’t

quite

clicked yet.

Somebody’s screaming and

somebody’s holding Tim

back and he can only

watch as Bertie..

  
  
  
  
  


..falls

  
  
  
  
  
  


And something breaks, inside Tim.

Something sharp and

angry and

_ terrible  _

  
  
  
  


and there is nothing but screaming screaming screaming screaming screaming **screaming screaming screaming** **screaming** _**screaming** **screaming** _

##  _**screaming** _

#  _**screaming** _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Tim woke up to a pounding headache, stiff aching shoulders, and the creeping suspicion that he’d fucked up. 

The past- day? No, week, maybe, or hour. He had no idea how long it had been - it was all a blur of anger and death and grief and-

Grief? Where had  _ that _ come from? No-one had died, had they? After all, Jonny seemed allergic to dying, the Toy Soldier had defected to the other side a few weeks back because they, apparently, had better-looking uniforms, and Bertie-

Oh god Bertie.

“No,” he muttered. “No, no no no…”

Tim sagged against the floor, the ropes binding his arms digging in painfully as he moved.

It took a few moments for all that to process.

He was kneeling, more or less, on the floor, ropes keeping his arms tied tight behind him. Tim looked up.

The Moon Kaiser, sat on his throne, looked down. He smiled at Tim, though his eyes held no humour.

“Well now, my friend,” he said, voice perfectly even. “What a pleasure it is to finally meet you. No, don’t bother, you won’t get out of those knots that easily.”

Tim stopped straining. He knew, logically, that he should feel scared. That his only hope now was for a quick death, and the Moon Kaiser likely wouldn’t even grant him that. 

He didn’t feel scared though.

He didn’t feel much at all.

“I hear you’ve made quite a habit of hacking up my boys. I thought I’d return the favour,” the Kaiser continued, leaning forward, “all the means I have at my disposal.”

He clicked his fingers, and one of the uniformed guards brought forward a box, the purple velvet covering it already stained red.

“An extended execution, royally appointed! And I’ll warn you, Tim, the last one…” He hummed for a second, like he was looking for the right word. “It was  _ incredibly  _ disappointing.”

Another click, and the guard passed the box to the Kaiser, who opened the box, and-

God. Poor bastard.

Tim would be the first to say that he never did get to properly  _ like  _ Jonny, but even so - seeing the man’s freshly-severed head, his dead, glassy eyes- well. He didn’t deserve that. No-one did.

And then one of Jonny’s dead, glassy eyes winked, and he grinned that same half-feral grin.

Huh.

Maybe things weren’t so fucked after all.

He glanced about, then regretted it as another sharp pain stabbed through his head. Tim tried again, looking around as far as he could without moving his actual head. Across the room, the great Lunar gun stood, aimed right at London town. More guards were arrayed around the walls, all wearing fine uniforms befitting royal guards. They didn’t look like soldiers used to warfare though, so Tim hope he’d be able to take them in a fight, if it came t-

_ Huh. _

Because Tim would recognise that wooden grin - literally, wooden - anywhere. Somehow, it seemed that the Toy Soldier had managed to join the royal guard.

A plan was forming in Tim’s mind. It wasn’t necessarily a good plan, or a well thought-out plan, but it wasn’t like he had any other options. Maybe he’d see Bertie out the other side.

Tim struggled to his feet, flipping off the Kaiser for good measure. He looked the Soldier in the eyes and he gave the order-

“Fight!”

Chaos fell upon the room, the violence quick and mad. The Toy Soldier carried out Tim’s command with brutal efficiency - and even the strongest barrage of bullets won’t stop wood for long.

Taking his leave, Tim ran across to the gun. Behind him, he heard a strangled, nasally scream, then a heavy  _ thud,  _ the kind that comes from dropping something the size and shape of a severed head on the floor in shock. Tim ignored it, he was at the great canon now, spinning the dial to turn the barrel away from its target. Spinning it all the way around, in fact, until it was pointed right back at the Moon itself.

He didn’t know the firing codes but that wouldn’t stop him, not now the sound of violence was singing in his bones again, not when the armoury was full of barrels of gunpowder he could use to set the fuse alight.

The throne room was still a shouting, roiling, mess of fighting, but Tim was sure Jonny and the Toy Soldier would be just fine. He fled into the lifepod, where the Kaiser would spend each night - shielded hard against the force of twenty suns and with a sun visor that would protect his eyes from even a supernova’s blast. He slammed down a lever and watched the visor slowly roll down. 

Too slow.

Too slow, it wasn’t going to make it down in time, Tim could see that.

Too slow, too slow as the fuse hissed, and burned its way down, and then, 

it stopped.

And the explosion was like nothing Tim had felt before.

And then,

nothing. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr! [regicidal-defenestration](regicidal-defenestration.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
